


Always Crashing in the Same Car

by Argyle



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-03
Updated: 2008-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam was prepared to allow his imagination some artistic license, but this just seemed like sloppy editing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Crashing in the Same Car

**Author's Note:**

> Slight spoilers for 2.08.

It's 1975 before Sam manages to get himself killed again.

He and Gene spend the better part of the previous night hunkered down in the Cortina, but the scene's as good as deserted, and Sam's left with fuck-all 'cept a stiff neck and a raging hard-on.

That's right. There's nothing like the madness of confinement. But Gene looks at him without really looking; Gene loosens his tie; Gene taps out Sergio Mendes on the dashboard; Gene brushes Sam's hand while reaching for a depleted pack of cigarettes. Which in the half-light becomes this: Gene will rub at the tender flesh between his eyes, but won't grouse about being knackered, won't even yawn; Gene will talk about the football, but won't berate United; Gene will nip at Sam's collarbone, but won't kiss him. And this is wishful thinking.

By morning, it's all Sam can do to clamber out in search of bacon butties and tea.

Gene yells to him as he leaves the café (Gene has a fantastic a pair of lungs), tries to warn him (and so eloquent). There's not enough time.

Sam's shot once in the shoulder, like a shout, and then lower, more centered, in his abdomen. The amount of blood is terrific. He's on the ground, looking up, and the sky's the rare sort of Technicolor blue that reminds him of Mexico.

*

When he comes to, he's surrounded by gifts. Fruit and fish. But everything's green in the fluorescent light, and the apples and pears and glinting, overripe tangerines look tired, two steps from edible on the chipped formica counter.

His head aches. They've given him drugs. Against the glare, he plays a game with himself, which is this: _I chose. I am a DI. I am a part of something. I am a part of something bigger. I am something bigger._ And so on.

He sometimes believes it.

Periodically, a pretty nurse comes to tend his sutures and check his blood pressure. The warm weight of her hand on his shoulder tempers her words.

"How do you feel, Inspector Tyler?"

"Fine."

She glances at her watch, the face upside-down on her thin wrist; when she raises her fingertips from his own, the spot flares white on white. "Close call."

He's had closer. It's not beyond him to gloat.

He flips through one of the dog-eared comic books Chris left him.

Later, hours later, he senses someone settling into the chair by his bedside. Then he smells the someone, tobacco and whisky, and beneath all that, sweat.

"You never went home," says Sam, his voice sounding distant in his ears.

Gene sniffs. "Had a job to do, didn't I?"

"What happened?

"After you had the good grace to pass out? We nicked Jarvis, lest he make the pass, but Serropian went off on foot, armed to the nuts."

"Did he..."

"Just you, Tyler, like a bloody magnet. And then there's Serropian, blind in one eye and brains scrambled, playing god's gift to the underworld. Couldn't hit an elephant's arsehole. Got to hand it to you: I didn't think you'd be enough of a twat to jump in front of a bullet."

"Two."

"Credit where it's due."

"Still make me a twat?"

"A lucky one, which is better than you deserve."

Sam opens his eyes. "Nothing wrong with a bit of dramatic tension."

Gene smiles, a baring of teeth. Then he sweeps low, his cheek almost – but not quite – brushing Sam's, and whispers, "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing?" There's anger there, sure. There's always anger. But beneath that, there's the sort of worry which runs like a midnight channel, silent and deep. Sam recognizes it as something akin to his own anxiety, the dread which once rose in his stomach, threatened to overtake him, and then did. It's never entirely gone away.

When Gene straightens, the air about him parts and caves. Sam feels it on his forearms; the fine hairs there prickle, stand on end.

He regrets the loss.

"Well?" It's hardly more than a grunt. And then, softer, "Sam."

"I couldn't know," Sam says.

"What? That your haircut would look just as stupid six feet under?"

Sam doesn't answer. He listens to the machine by his bedside, sharp as the chirr of a night bird.

Gene lifts the clipboard from the foot of Sam's bed, and then begins to thumb through Sam's charts. "Serropian's dead," he says.

 _Flip, flip._

"How?" Sam asks.

 _Flip._

"Carling."

"Oh."

"Is that all you can say?"

"Have you written me a script?"

"Yeah. It begins and ends with you being accountable for your actions."

"And having a go at being a fine specimen of Swiss cheese counts as what, exactly?"

With something like a sigh, Gene sags onto the footboard. The metal joints creak under his weight, but hold, and Sam resists the urge to nudge a bare foot up through the sheet and against the pooled camelhair, if only to feel something other than over-bleached cotton on his skin.

"When you went down-- I thought I'd be writing your epitaph come nightfall."

This is wishful thinking. What Gene really says is this: "Don't be a bastard."

(Still eloquent.)

He puzzles over Sam's chest x-ray, then glances through the doctor's notes, like he's deeply interested, like he knows. "Says you won't be released 'til Tuesday week."

"I'm not spending a fortnight here."

"You check out early, you'll end up falling off that cot of yours to finish the job."

But Sam hates hospitals.

He says so, in so few words: it earns him a smile from Gene, a quick quirk of his lips which slips through his defenses, and which is replaced by a scowl, overripe and tired.

"You're feverish."

"Must be to do with this highly stimulating environment. Better get me back to A-Division before I start howling out Gilbert and Sullivan."

"I bet you're a terrific soprano," Gene huffs. He moves to leave, then does so, and is halfway out the door before he turns round to press Sam's hand. Sam looks at him.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Gene says.

"Okay."

Gene nods, pocketing an apple. He'll finish it before he makes it back to the Cortina, but won't remember to chuck the core until he's blocks away.


End file.
